As it is generally known, electronic mail (“e-mail”) is a store and forward messaging technology for composing, sending, storing, and receiving messages over electronic communication systems. E-mail is asynchronous and does not require the receiver of a message to be online at the time the message is sent or received. Messages are exchanged between hosts using the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) with software programs called mail transport agents. Users can download their messages from servers with standard protocols such as the POP or IMAP protocols, or using proprietary protocols.
Existing e-mail systems enable a user to define an out of office message that is automatically sent as a reply to messages received during time periods when the user has indicated that he or she is not able to respond. However, as explained in detail below, existing systems do not effectively provide out of office messages for users having multiple job responsibilities.
When a user has multiple responsibilities, each different responsibility will likely have a different set of one or more alternative contacts to be used when the user is unavailable. Existing systems necessitate that the user's out of office message include a potentially lengthy list of all such alternative contacts, with indications of which of the user's responsibilities is associated with which specific contact.
For example, assuming User A has the following responsibilities:
a) technical lead for a new product design and architecture,
b) point of contact for open source questions and issues,
c) support for an existing instant messaging component, and
d) president of a ski club.
User A's out of office message would need to contain backup contacts for all of the above responsibilities. Accordingly, when another user, e.g. User X, sends an e-mail message to User A while User A is out of the office, User X would be automatically sent an out of office e-mail message with the whole list of contact information. Such a message might, for example, be as follows:“I will be out of office from Jan. 2, 2007 till Jan. 20, 2007. Please contact
1) User B for new product architecture and design questions & issues,
2) User C for open source questions & issues,
3) User D for instant messaging component questions & issues, and
4) User E for ski club activities.”
When User X receives the above out of office message, he or she has to go through the complete backup contact list to determine which user to contact for his or her particular need. It would accordingly be desirable to have a new system that allows User X to receive a customized out of office message containing only the backup contact information that is appropriate for their request.
One existing system (see http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/tip/9559.html) outlines a method for using rules/filters to set up an out of office message. In another existing system (see U.S. patent application publication 2005/0021636), incoming e-mail is identified as either internal or external, and different out of office messages may be sent to internal and external users based that identification. These previous solutions allow a user to customize their out of office message based on filters and rules. Filters and rules in these previous systems send different “out of office” messages to selected other users or to internal and external users. However, these systems do not alleviate the problem of users receiving a lengthy out of office message in which they must sift through a lengthy list of backup contacts in order to find the appropriate person to help them with the subject of their original message. Existing systems do not provide any way to generate an out of office message that includes specific backup contact information that matches the type of inquiry that was received.